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Helping kids choose the right career
by Steven Rudolph
July 30, 2009

Recently a 17-year old boy and his parents from Mumbai came to visit me to talk about his future plans. They seemed to be at loggerheads because of their differing opinions about which profession he should pursue. A good-looking, well-built boy, he expressed his fondness for working out at the gym, and spoke about his dreams of competing in international bodybuilding competitions. Beyond that, he mentioned his interest in doing something in the entertainment field, though he wasn’t quite sure what. His mother and father were reluctant to let their son sail into such uncertain waters, hoping they could convince him to take up a more conventional type of job.

Though they remained poised during the heated discussion, I could see tensions surfacing as they individually pleaded their cases with me, a neutral third party. He needed to be in the gym for 4-6 hours a day. They wanted to see him in a “normal” job and felt spending so much time weight training was excessive. They continued smile with gritted teeth, indicating that they were not seeing eye to eye.

I then told them about my method of job selection that uses the Multiple Intelligence and Multiple Natures frameworks: Multiple Intelligences is Howard Gardner’s theory that explains how people don't have just one type of intelligence but rather, eight. These are Bodily, Interpersonal, Logical, Linguistic, Visual, Musical, Intrapersonal, and Naturalistic. I then explained my own theory of Multiple Natures—that people have 9 types of “tendencies” in how they apply their intelligences, including Protective, Educative, Administrative, Creative, Healing, Entertaining, Providing, Entrepreneurial, and Adventurous.

Next, I showed them the Jiva Career Test and had the boy do an online assessment that asks 34 questions related to the individual’s intelligences and natures. After about 7 minutes, he completed the test, and the search algorithm went to work, searching through hundreds of jobs matching his particular nature with the nature required for those jobs.

Here were the results: With respect to his Multiple Intelligences, his Bodily was clearly stronger than his other intelligences. That was not so surprising given his physique and passion for working out. However his Multiple Natures told a story different from what we had expected. His Entertaining Nature (the tendency to amuse and entertain others) was extremely low—only 4 out of 10. I asked him if he really felt that was true, as he had originally explained to me his interest in the entertainment industry. At that point he confessed that he was very reserved by nature and was not really good at getting and holding people’s attention. The other thing I noticed was how high his Healing and Providing Natures were (i.e., the tendency to help others get out of pain, and the tendency to put others interests over his own). To those points he immediately responded, “Oh, yeah, that’s me!” His parents readily agreed, providing a few examples of his sensitivity to others and willingness to help them out when they were in need.

I then took a look at what the computer algorithm turned up after searching through our job database. On the top of the list: Sports medicine practitioner and physiotherapist. Others included osteopath, chiropractor, and Ayurvedic therapist. When I showed them the result they looked a little baffled at first because it was something far from what any of them had ever thought of. But when we talked about the nature of these jobs and the nature of the boy, they seemed to make sense. I then honed in on physiotherapy, and mentioned a physiotherapist I know  who has a similar MI/MN profile—and who absolutely loves his profession. I also explained to them that he spends all day in a gym while helping others perform exercises to remedy the physical problems they are facing—and that he gets to work out whenever there are no patients. What could be better?

When I asked the boy his thoughts, he said it sounded like an interesting idea, although it was not something he had ever considered. I told him not to become unsettled by the thought, nor to throw out his old dreams, but simply to make space in his mind for a career in these areas. I suggested he start doing some research, reading up on professions in the life-wellness space and become more familiar with them.

I then shared my own experience with him—that when I was in high school, my dream was to become a professional musician. I was so convinced that I would become a rock star, that if someone told me otherwise, I would simply turn up my amplifier and ignore them. Throughout high school and college, I played in numerous bands, and after graduation, I moved to New York City to find my fame and fortune in the world of music. Unfortunately, aspiring rock stars don’t make a lot of money (in fact, they don’t make any money), and so I got a part time job as a teacher to pay the bills. While teaching my first class, I got so high from the experience, that I thought to myself, "This is so much fun I could do it for the rest of my life."  And at the end of the session, as the last student left the class, I stood at the doorway and had an epiphany: You’re not a rock star, you’re a teacher. Years later, with the help of the Multiple Natures model, I am able understand the meaning of that realization—my Educative Nature is higher than my Entertaining nature. I have remained happy as an educator since that defining moment over 20 years ago. (And I still play guitar daily and often finish my sessions off by playing a song for the class.)

In my case, I was lucky that I accidentally found teaching. Unfortunately there are others who realize mid-life that they are in the wrong professions—but by then it is too late to change their vocation as they have family and financial responsibilities that don’t permit them to pursue other avenues. Even worse are those people who spend their entire lives in jobs they never enjoyed, and realize only after retirement that they could have done something that would have really given them satisfaction. My opinion is that finding one’s calling should not be left to chance. Too often, kids choose jobs for all the wrong reasons: because of the glamour that they hold, because friends are also going in that line, or because of parental pressures (e.g., Son, you should become an accountant like me). Teachers, parents, and kids should be using a more scientific process to help them arrive at more accurate career choices.

By the end of the session, the boy’s parents felt relieved that there was a direction that fell under the “normal” category for career choices. And their son was now armed with new details about his nature that would serve him better as he decided his career path. I felt content because the Multiple Natures Model and the Jiva Career Test were able to significantly help someone in the process of finding his calling. It is my firm belief that when people work according to their nature, that their work energizes them, rather than takes it away. Now we need to spread this knowledge and method to more and more people, so we end up with a society of people who genuinely enjoy their jobs—and for whom work becomes play.

If you are interested to take the Jiva Career Test, or have your child take it, please visit: www.jiva.com/careertest or contact us at contact@jiva.com.
 

 
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